i love how we can see the seeds of joel’s willingness to do absolutely anything, no matter how immoral, to protect his daughters being sewn from the very start. in both the show and game there’s this scene where he, tommy, and sarah are trying to get out of town on outbreak day together and they pass a family flagging them down for help. tommy says “they’ve got a kid,” implying that he wants to stop and pick them up. joel says, “so do we. keep moving.” despite sarah and tommy’s protests, despite seeing how bad things were already getting, despite these people and their child needing help, joel chooses to put his daughter’s safety first

this is almost a direct foreshadowing of his choice to save ellie in the end, despite knowing it would get thousands, if not millions, of people killed in the long run. joel was willing to abandon a family in need to keep sarah safe, just as he was willing to abandon the world to keep ellie safe. when abby finally faces him, he doesn’t scream or cry for help. he hardly even tries to stop her after a certain point. he knew it would end like this for him if he chose ellie. he doesn’t care. he will choose his daughters every time, no matter the cost. even if the cost is his life